European Unemployment Just Keeps Rising; Euro Zone Jobless Figures Rises To 12.2% While EU Holds At 11%

Europe’s latest jobs report is out Friday and there’s little good news in it — especially for Greece and Spain and any working age young European.

The European Union’s 27 member states saw their jobless rate hold at 11 percent in April compared to March, but that’s up from 10.2 percent compared to April 2012.

The situation in the euro zone’s 17 members is worse. April’s figure rose to 12.2 percent from 12.1 percent the previous month. In April 2012, the euro zone’s jobless number was 11.2 percent.

More young Europeans (from working age to 25) lacked jobs last month compared to April 2012. In the EU, the youth unemployment rate stood at 23.5 percent. It was even higher in the euro zone, at 24.4 percent. Last year, the rate in both areas was 22.6 percent, according to Eurostat.

Austria, Germany and Luxembourg continued to have the lowest unemployment rates, all below 6 percent.

Southern Europe has the highest jobless rates: 17.8 percent for Portugal, 26.8 percent for Spain and 27 percent for Greece.

Best year-over-year improvements: Latvia dropped to 12.4 percent from 15.5 percent. Estonia’s rate fell to 8.7 percent from 10.6 percent, while Ireland saw unemployment fall to 13.5 percent from 14.9 percent.

Twelve of the EU’s 27 states had higher-than the region’s average unemployment rate.